From The Magazine

The 2011 Calder Trophy winner jumped the line in Carolina's system to put out his award winning season. Going off seniority alone, Jeff Skinner jumped the queue when he nabbed his roster spot on the 2010-11 Carolina Hurricanes. A fresh-faced 18-year-old who dazzled at rookie camp before cementing his status with the big boys, Skinner was the unlikely winner in a game of youthful musical chairs featuring older Carolina prospects such as Zach Boychuk, Drayson Bowman and Zac Dalpe.

The former Winnipeg Jet and Hockey Hall of Famer talks about the city as an NHL market and what it was like to play there. By Dale Hawerchuk with Rory Boylen
There’s a notion out there Winnipeg isn’t the greatest place for an athlete to live. Unfortunately, that’s the media - it’s not a good story unless it’s negative.

The Oilers aren't going to be making any substantial playoff runs soon, so the No. 1 overall pick from 2011 has time to develop at his own pace. The way Ryan Nugent-Hopkins was stroking his face, it’s a good thing the Edmonton Oilers don’t figure on an extended playoff run anytime soon.

The fans in Georgia were never given a chance to show if they could be a hockey market and they'll likely never have the chance again. The second death of NHL hockey in Atlanta, which was relatively quick and painless, was also inevitable. Which means the Thrashers deserve a proper obituary.

After a few messy seasons, the Tampa Bay Lightning got their house in order and are now a contender for the Cup once again. The 2004 Eastern Conference final was a spirited series played between Tampa Bay and Philadelphia. The Bolts squeaked through and managed to claim the Cup, but there were some dark days between that high and today’s team, which is again an Eastern contender.

After a down year in his first season with the Wild, Czech scorer Martin Havlat is hitting his old stride again. Team-wise, Martin Havlat hasn’t had the best luck over his 10-year NHL career.
After five seasons in Ottawa - and as he prepared to finish out the last year of his contract and become a restricted free agent - the satiny smooth left winger was traded to Chicago in the summer of 2006; the Senators went to the Stanley Cup final in the 2006-07 campaign without him.

Overnight superstar Sergei Bobrovsky is looking to improve his English to communicate better with the team. Philadelphia Flyers netminder Sergei Bobrovsky has been the talk of the NHL for most of the first half of the season. The out-of-nowhere sensation has put up top-20 numbers in wins, save percentage and goals-against average and showed enough in a short amount of time that the Flyers were comfortable waiving veteran Michael Leighton.

After fainting and sustaining a concussion in the first game of the season, Ondrej Pavelec is posting solid numbers... and Zenon Konopka a faceoff whiz. Not much gets past Ondrej Pavelec, unless he decides to put it there.
Some may have thought the story of Pavelec’s season was written just a couple minutes into his first game, when the 23-year-old suddenly dropped while standing alone outside his crease, sustaining a mild concussion in the frightening fall.

After years of seeing the numbers rise, the amount of players wearing facial protection in the NHL has evened off. For the first time since THN began compiling visor statistics in 1998-99, the number of NHLers wearing eye protection has plateaued. And a pair of personal stories from two players on opposite sides of the issue sheds light as to why.

When Brian Burke arrived in Toronto, he was a highly touted GM with a Stanley Cup, but his insistence on skipping a rebuild has cost the Maple Leafs. Three years ago, just after Brian Burke won the Stanley Cup in Anaheim, THN anointed Burke the best GM in the NHL. But as Wile E. Coyote proved every time one of his ACME contraptions went awry and he ended up crushed under a boulder, genius can indeed be fleeting.

Jason Spezza nearly left Ottawa in the summer, but since then he's committed himself to becoming a more all-round player and a leader. The relationship between Jason Spezza and the Ottawa Senators wasn’t at an all-time high during the summer.
The 27-year-old had grown weary of the wringer players in Canadian cities – especially star players – are put through.

Some goalies prefer to face more shots and perform better in those situations, but in the end, it's all about the wins. Take 10 steps in any touristy part of Thailand and you’ll quickly discover somebody not from that country wearing a T-shirt that reads, “same same, but different.